Supporting THE teaching of action research (STAR)
An Action Research Community
ACTION RESEARCH NETWORK OF THE AMERICAS
WELCOME TO OUR ACTION RESEARCH COMMUNITY (ARC)
The STAR-Community of ARNA provides support for the teaching and learning of action research. We work together to share our ideas, to improve our teaching practice, and we invite you to join us and share and learn from the STAR community.
This initial development of the website was the first phase. Beginning with a small group and using a Learning Circle Approach, we met monthly from Oct 2017-May 2018. Each of us led the group around a project idea and the development of the site resources around that topic. The goal of the community is to collectively create the first draft of ideas, suggestions, and resources to support the teaching of action research.
In our current second phase, we invite the larger ARNA community to join us in expanding the site and discussing ideas, activities, projects and resources. To do this we have:
- Made the STAR site available in English and Spanish (use the menu to switch languages)
- Published our first edition of the STAR Newsletter May 2019 in English and Spanish.
- Created Action Research Teaching Blog which accepts contributions in either Spanish or English
- Linked with the Action Research Tutorials and Facebook Discussion
In the future, we will schedule live STAR Conversations on issues related to teaching action research. Thanks to all that joined us at the ARNA conference in Montreal and we are looking forward to meeting you online and at the next ARNA conference in Puerto Vallarta. If you have ideas or professional needs as a teacher of action research, please come and share your ideas. We will evolve with all of you.
IN TIME OF CO-VIRUS 19 SOCIAL DISTANCING.
Many of you are having your teaching of action research disrupted and you are being asked to teach online for the first time. A bit of advice is that this is a time to make students more active and responsible for their learning. Teaching online works best if you ask (leading) questions rather than give information. This encourages students to connect the dots themselves and own their insights. If you need to get students working quickly while you think about how to move your teaching online, the Action Research Tutorials are free to use and can provide some activities while you rethink and retool your teaching. Also feel free to ask questions about online teaching in our Facebook group as there are many excellent instructors who are skilled at online teaching.
To create live classes online (free):
with Zoom: https://youtu.be/JlRfIUH8ENw
with Google Hangouts: https://youtu.be/DPZb3D0500I
To make videos for students (free)
Kathy Shafer
Margaret Riel
Laura Dino
Teri Marcos
Donna Azodi
Jennifer Robins
Linda Purrington
Clotilde Lomeli
Carlos Chiu
The people listed here have worked in a Action Research Learning Circle from Sep 2017- June 2018 focused on sharing and creating resources through a process of distributed leadership.
Each member of the learning circle is of a leader of one of the teaching topics listed in the navigation bar, but all the members of the learning circle shared their ideas on these topics either in discussion or writing or both. The topics appear under teaching topics in the navigation menu as well as here. Each of us is exploring ways to have a larger number of people join us and share ideas and you can see this on the pages.
- Framing the Research Question - Led by Linda Purrington
- Ethical Challenges of Action Research - Led by Jennifer Robins
- Blending Theory and Practice - Led by Margaret Riel
- Data Collection and Analysis - Led by Kathy Shafer
- Action Research and Leadership Development - Led by Donna Azodi
- Action Research Competence – Led by Laura Dino
- Teaching the Art of Reflection – Led by Teri Marcos
- Youth Action Research - Led by Carlos Chiu
- Temas de Enseñanza - Spanish Translations of all of the above themes by Clotilde Lomeli Agruel
In May 2019, we started the STAR newsletter to share article and resources from the larger ARNA community with our members.
In April 2019, we started the STAR Blog to post short entries that we hope will spark conversations around the process of teaching action research
We shared the different ways that action research fits into the curriculum of the university programs. For some it is directly tied to a set of courses. In other cases, the work is informed by courses but students work with a set of advisors to do action action research as a masters or doctoral thesis. Our goal in "timeframes" was to share ideas for how action research fits into the course of study at different universities to help others as they go through reorganizations of their university programs. There is a quick survey for you to complete and you are invited to share your program details.
As a support for those who might be new to teaching action research or who are teaching it in a new area, we are inviting everyone to share their action research syllabi. While the reading material might be dated, the overall structure of courses might provide generative ideas on how to structure new courses. Feel free to add your syllabi with the community.
We invite you to consider joining a number of Action Research Networks. We also invite you to use the action research tutorials in your teaching or to make available to students who might use them to help participants in action research who might want to learn more about the process. And a facebook discussion for both the teaching and learning of action research.
Become a member of STAR-ARNA-ARC and help us support the teaching of action research!